Turn 2310 - Game over?

[sanchez]

Higher levels of technology ought to require cooperation. Right?

[Solfius]

Yes, but there is a difference between requiring cooperation and being overcomplicated

I'll take another example this time, as I think the crossbow is fortunately one of the most extreme cases of over complication.

To assemble a car you need, among other things, a fork spanner and a wrench.

This is a wrench


This is a fork spanner


I fail to see why it is necessary to have two nearly identical tools when a single tool is all that is required. Maybe in real life you need two very similar tools, but is this good for Cantr? Personally I don't think so.

For the record, I have never heard of a fork spanner being called that before, normally they're called spanners, and the wrench is normally called an adjustable spanner, I realise there are different ways of calling things from place to place, but it highlights my point.

Also I found this page http://www.g503.com/tools/16.htm that shows a "set of wrenches", as it describes them, or if you're in Cantr a set of fork spanners.

This in my mind is unnecessary duplication.

Now the point of this long post is to illustrate my main question:

Has Cantr become over complicated, and is this contributing to the drop in players?

[the_antisocial_hermit]

Higher levels of technology ought to require cooperation. Right?

Sometimes... but not all things or all the time.

[Missy]

So, if your older chars hold onto leadership positions in game, you want to blame things like fuel and tool rot for the fact that you won't be bothered to engage new players? :s

It should not need to be said that older players, and especially staff, have a responsibility in game for the experience of new players

I did say players, right? Not characters?

So, if your older chars hold onto leadership positions in game, you want to blame things like fuel and tool rot for the fact that you won't be bothered to engage new players?

Why does all of that rely on me? I'm but one person. You've lost several people who might have been enthusiastic enough about the game and lost them over changes, who would have been glad to do exactly that. That's an insane statement to make.

First of all, explaining to a player how to play the game is not something that is done IC'ly. Of course, having a character show a newspawn the ropes IC'ly is an entirely different thing. Of course, I don't fail to help a struggling new player out in whisper if they are appearing not to get something. I have found some nifty ways to hint at things too, without even having to fall OOC over the years. I do what I have to do while playing the game, no matter how annoying and tiresome it may be. Taking the time can end up to my benefit over-all and for the games. I know that and am aware of it.



On a further note, Do you take the personal time to sit with someone over yahoo messanger and explain? "Well, the log-in button does this. You have to click on the smiley to get to your character. Well the people page shows you all the people in your town. If you click on yourself you'll see these bars. Blah blah blha. It's on the far left hand of the screen....See it? Well you'll have to use the talk button and introduce yourself. Figure out where you are so you can name the location you're in. You name the location by......Oh and you name a person by.........And there's roads under the location button...You'll have to ask someone where they lead to unless there's a note on the ground. OH--did I mention the ground usually means objects? It's the objects page. The icon to look at the objects page is up beside the icon for activity and peoople.... " Sorry Sanchez, but the amount of time it takes to personally explain every little detail (Which I used to do for people who I personally introduced to the game,) is just not something I can do anymore. It was tiresome then? And even more so-now. I am under no obligation to do that in the first place, however I can tell you that doing that? RATHER than ~AHEM~ referring them to some poorly written game description or the Wiki, and at least in my case has resulted in long-term players and a flock of excellent characters to boot.

Don't preach to me about

Teach them before you whine about the quality of the player base. That kind of snobbery is the greater disincentive, imo.

Im not one of the players who sits here on the forum complaining about "Noobs" No. I'm not one of the players who sits here complaining about spelling mistakes and errors. Im not one of those annoying bastards who will go IC like this:

Char1: I sea you.
Char2: How do you sea something?

Who the eff cares how it's spelled. Think about how it sounds. Your chars aren't seeing the writing, they're hearing it for godssakes.


I'm not one of the people who sat around bitching at pie. And you see, I'm glad I wasn't. While I'm sure some of you think you were doing favors, some of you were down-right nasty. Talking about banning him from the forum simply because his spelling mistakes bothered you. Gee, that's a real good way to gain clients or players. (Think of all the people who you've discouraged from actively seeking roles on the forum to comment because they know their spelling isn't the greatest and may have turned out to be rather swell people or cantr-ers? ) Really. I mean, when a fat dude walks in to McDonalds, you don't turn him away. You certainly don't start calling him fat either. And if he says he wants twelve chicken nugget happy meals, you give them to him. Course if you called him fat and there happened to be another fat dude right behind him? What do you think is going to happen?


No I'm not one of those people, KNOWING that there's potential in even the most annoying of people to become a Cantr'er.


Older players? What are older players?



My brother in-law and his future wife are really into Runescape or whatever. They keep trying to get me to play it (but I've never played another game since I've started playing cantr except nationstates and I just don't want to be bothered,), and I just know that I could get his future wife to play Cantr and she'd love it. IF I could keep her attention while explaining everything. If I could get her past all the tedium that's required to even play anymore. For some reason I don't believe she'd feel it was worth it. So I haven't really bothered yet.....I'm sorry, but Cantr was never easy back in the day to just pick up and start playing. My husband had to explain it to me. I had to explain it in DETAIL to every person I ever introduced. I somehow doubt that the wiki has changed that. Knowing still of all the newspawns who say "Sure I'll help you drag....Um, *Whisper* How do you drag someone?"I know for certain that it hasn't become easier to explain either. I know that, because I myself have troubles keeping up with what's new and how to do things anymore. If it's hard for me? And it loses MY interest and attention? Then it's BOUND to be hard for new people.


Does that make sense now?

How many people have spawned in a populated place and been
ignored?

I will tell you that it's not easy being everywhere and doing everything that a character has to do, and NEVER ever missing someone. It's damn hard in big towns like Doryiskom and Siom. Sometimes people jump to the conclusion that characters are ignoring their characters when actually, there's just absolutely SOOOO much going on in that place, it slips the one person who gives a damn about that kind of thing? Yeah, it slips passed and not because that character wants it to.

You do know that there's a whisper button for a reason, right? So people can whisper. Characters to be more precise. I know that it's something that has to be solved IC'ly. I've had a char who had a problemw ith whispering in one town, ended up whispering a bit more than she'd have liked herself without realizing and got called a hypocrite for it. I have been to towns where all I see is pages and pages of people whispering with no out-loud speech for turns and turns, yet there's someone talking to someone each minute. I've got a char who rarely says a word, but when it does 9 times out of 10 it's in a whisper to the only person it ever talks to. I've also come to realize that sometimes you whisper a ton and don't even realize you're doing it. Have I had a character go to a town and feel ignroed? Yes. And it does something about it. Says something about it. Leaves. Finds a solution. Screams until it's heard. Or is complacent the way it is.

Why do you pick out "populated place" as an example even? The one small town I was in. Maybe 5-6 characters....This one characters only interest was talking to her boyfriend. The boyfriend says "We can't seem to get people to stay here. Everyone always wants to leave." He's the leader of the town by the way. So they hand out free bone knife and a bikini or whatever trying to entice people to stay. My own char introduces itself, and the girlfriend char doesn't bother introducing herself. But she's clearly awake several times a day. The boyfriend later dies and the girl friend becomes the leader. She's crying and wants sympathy or for people to be respectably sorrowful..........Gee, can you blame people for not wanting to be there? lol Like, "Oh. Now you want to know our name so we can pat your back and tell you it'll be alright. Now we're good enough for you to care about."


Being ignored can happen anywhere, big or small. My char said to hell with that place. Went on for better things elsewhere, of course after stating it's opinon about "No wonder noone stays here."

But I also imagine there's reason why those chars are like that. Just as I know there's a reason why mine is the way it is. What does that have to do with people being snotty? People are allowed to be snotty IC.

[Missy]

I also want to know.....


Why doesn't it cross anyone's mind that the people aren't whispering to be rude and ignore someone? You have no idea what they're saying. What if they're actually discussing what to do about a pirate ship out in the harbour that requires urgent attention? What if they're dumb? What if they're trying to purposely see how long it'll take before your character explodes before saying something about their obnoxious whispering? How can you personally point fingers and make distinctions about why people do a certain thing without being in their heads/without even seeing what's being whispered?


If your char thinks it's rude...Okay. Your char has a choice to do something.


But again? How does that belong in this discussion? You're saying you know that whisper towns are the reason for the decline in players? Because players don't realize their characters have a choice?

Since when was it impossible for characters to do something about what they didn't like? Ohhhhhhhhhh right. Since the game became so tedius. I gotcha.

[kinvoya]

Wow, Missy, I felt like you were attacking me with a couple of those points (I was annoyed with Pie at first and still think that he deserved it because he wasn't trying to make his posts comprehensible and I also used the word "tedious") but I wasn't the one who criticized you. I think you probably do more to make Cantr work than any 50 random players.

I don't understand why new players have to have their hands held, anyway. Simnply playing the game isn't that hard to figure out especially with the Wiki. When I started playing I had never played any internet game before and had no idea what was going on at all but I floundered around clicking this and that to see what happened and eventually figured it out. I remember that one of my first two chars was spawned in Seatown Garden which was an almost silent place at the time. She kept knocking and asking over and over for days how to get into a building before some char finally spoke up. Most people who come here have at least some idea that clicking things will result in something happening. If they are too dim to understand cause and effect then it's probably best for everyone if they don't play.

I will always try to explain the concept of staying in character because that seems to be what is most confusing. I'll also explain the interfaces OOC to some extent but, if the player doesn't get it pretty quickly, I give up and hope they leave town so I don't have to hear their character going, "it won't let me click on it" and such.

What can be hard to figure out is how the complicated machines work especially if the Wiki isn't updated. I think new players have a hard time imagining how to get from making a bone knife to owning a motorcycle but, again, it's something you learn as you go.

[formerly known as hf]

I didn't realise this was even news?

I'd already resigned myself to 'no more English Cantr' over the next 12 months.

The English area lost many exceptionally good and important players (and thus characters) and it has stagnated almost everywhere. Even K-Isle is now just dull.

This hasn't been helped by the overtly 'anti-fun' changes by different departments.

Cantr is a avery particular game and will never have a large player base. It takes a particuar person to enjoy text-only RP and the slow pace. It takes a certain type of person to enjoy the long, laborious, complicated production system now in place.

I come under the first category, I imagine some people come under the other. Very few people come under both.

It's clear which player-base is being favoured, and previously the RP focused characters could get on and do their thing anyway, and still progress materially. They no longer can.

I can only imagine this is because of the requests of Polish players, something which gets mentioned as an excuse for the changes evry now and then.

If that's the case, then so be it. The Polish players make up the majority of the player base, and the game development should at least be diplomatic in that regards.

Cantr is now a duality. Those who RP and don't do anything else because it's too damned idfficult, time consuimg, complicated and frankly dull (those who engage in the tea party) and those industrious players who spend more time planning & organising than roleplaying.


Unfortunately, for Cantr to be interesting, it requires players who are RP-centric and who can cause major events of interest. But if the town leaders, the bandits, the mercenaries, the politicians, the explorers, are so tied-up in the mechanics of the game, we will never again see the intrigue, scandal, wars and diplomacy of before.

Alongside this, we have lost many of the driving players of the game. The ones which were the centre of major IG events. And these players have not been fully replaced.

The answer, which I latched onto (and so did Jos) a while ago, when discussing a solution to the stagnation due to tyravel time on the older islands, is to out-of-game orchestrate some drama, some major event, i.e: 'natural disaster'.


Either way, persoanlly, I've decided not to create any new characters unless I see a change in the approach to game design and some intrigue in-game.

[SekoETC]

I don't understand what all the whining is about. The basic things are still there. You don't need tools to farm or to gather wood or stone. Most people still travel by walking, with bare feet. It's possible to build boats with no iron. Iron is made in the same way as it has been for the whole time I've been playing this game, over three years. So is steel, exept that now there are cloth bellows too. Shields haven't been changed for a long time. Animals are less hostile than they used to be, although lately we've seem some strange outbursts of violence. Tiredness is now more of a joke, as are repairs due to people getting their message through by whining enough. Well, we do have usage based deterioration now, which is good.

Sounds like the big noise is about the fuels, now how could that touch so many people? Guess how many of my characters have a motored vehicle? ONE. And he built it on a primitive island, with very little assistance (I think his girlfriend helped with making some of the metals). Shouldn't tech be more complex than that? Oh and he built it in a forest. You would think that you'd at least have to build the frame indoors but nope.

Another character of mine had to build an anvil, a work bench, peen hammer, set hammer, flatter, sledgehammer, carving knife to make a mallet to make a small sharpening block - and gather and trade for ingredients in various locations, all this just to make a longsword. (A smelting furnace was borrowed and a pair of bellows bought.) It was tedious and took many years but it was possible. And it's still possible now.

Anyway, back to the fuels, if you can't afford the requirements of making some sort of fuel then build a bike or a boat or go plain walking. Maybe someone else will put up a gas station one day. I've put my trust on propane, although making alcohol doesn't sound so impossible either.

As far as I can remember, the fork spanner isn't used for anything. In fact for a long time I didn't even know what it means. I assumed it was some sort of a forked metal stick with rubber somewhere. A quick glance at the wiki, ah, so it's used for making cars? I don't see why we couldn't change all fork spanners to wrenches.

[Solfius]

Ah the peen hammer, set hammer, and flatter.

I just looked these up as well, again they are nearly identical.

Now, I know they serve slightly different purposes in smithing, but in Cantr is such close attention to detail really necessary.

Cantr as a game is supposed to model the real world. That is, "models are simplified frameworks designed to illuminate complex processes".

The importance of simplifying the complex processes we are simulating if huge, as if the game is too complicated it is no longer fun to play.

So, if in the real world you need several very similar tools to perform a task, in Cantr it ought to be simplified to a single tool.

Now, that doesn't have to mean that every single hammer in Cantr has to be the same. If you want to distinguish between the hammers used for most things and hammers for making weapons you could have a "Weaponsmithing Hammer" or something like that, but having multiple tools that perform almost identical roles in Cantr is too much in my opinion.

[SekoETC]

Could you find me a picture of a flatter, I've never figured out what those look like. I've been assuming peen hammer is a ball peen hammer and it's for smaller details while a flatter is well.. making things flat. And a set hammer is square-headed but smaller than a flatter.

[Zanthos]

one of my charries just finally started work on his harbour...

On the island of Rus, hes the only one left in the location. The town's leader is taken for dead, as she has been gone for almost 20 years now on a resource run. However, this charrie works hard and wants a harbour to go with the lighthouse to the west, in the hopes that having a harbour will allow the area to trade for its stone and grow.

I was very lucky when a stone knight came along and traded me all his iron for apples. VERY lucky, cuz I have no idea where i would have gotten it otherwise, as the leader locked up all the resources and I have no crowbar.

But this is a little off topic.

I guess people just have to find something enjoyable to everyone. I guess I fall into both categories of players, people who like to rp alot and people who like to engineer material gains. Some of my charries are RP oriented, others are materialistic (like the one i just talked about) though the materialistic ones are that way more out of necesity than preference. I will always defer to rp if given the chance, because thats more fun for everyone.

[Solfius]

http://www.blacksmithsdepot.com/_xobase_componants/image_stream2.php?filearg=/Resources/images/misc_product/Atha_flatter.jpg

There's a flatter

Yes, they are used for different jobs as part of the process, but essentially they are all types of hammer.

Is there any benefit to having individual tools, or does it just make things more complicated for no reason. I think it's the latter, as a single tool would be fine for Cantr's simplified reality.

[sanchez]

I still don't understand how simplifying manufacturing is going to improve rp. And if it can't, then what do we do?

I think any changes proposed at this point ought to be directed at engaging new players. Producing more things with primitive levels of technology may be a way. It takes time to learn to rp. What keeps people logging in while they learn, or if noone speaks? Complicated manufacturing processes for luxury items provides long term goals.

[SekoETC]

The set hammer looked exactly like that in some entries. Hmm... how many hammers should be elimitated? I always imagine the normal hammer looking like a metal version of a stone hammer, with a biggish head... But more likely they are just normal hammers. Peen hammer is generally used where ever fine work is needed, to stop people from doing it with a stone tool, I bet. Maybe we could change all set hammers into flatters? That would be one tool less. And why on earth do you need a chisel in making a sword?? I see a chisel as a wood carving tool... And you would need a mallet with it in every case to make it work. It's gonna deteriorate fast if you use a hard-headed hammer on it.

[Schme]

I agree. It's much to complicated.

I forget where I read this, but someone said somewhere on this thing "Cantr is still coasting off the time when people could rip iron right out of the ground."

I believe this to be true.